September 27, 2009

Immigration is probably the single broadest, deepest, most intellectually challenging topic in all of public policy. There’s no knottier or more significant question you can ask than: When the government elects a new people, how many and whom should it elect?

Not surprisingly, the sheer cognitive challenge involved in having an informed and intelligent opinion on immigration is one reason why immigration is the least favorite major issue among mainstream public intellectuals. ...

To conceal how far in over their heads they are, Main Stream Media (MSM) staffers often vilify anyone well-versed on immigration as “ignorant” and motivated by “hate”. No matter how thoughtful and judicious your insights on immigration, no matter how respectable your curriculum vitae, you’ll just be smeared directly or by association by the hucksters at the $outhern Poverty Law Center, whose word will then be taken on faith by the press.

“White had spoken passionately in our meetings about the negative consequences of losing control of the border between a population-stabilizing developed country and a population-exploding Third World country sharing a 2,000 mile frontier.”

But when John Tanton asked him to publish his views,

“White recoiled, almost frightened.

“‘My New York friends would never forgive me. No, you guys are right, but I can’t go public on this.’ ”

At that point, the 68-year-old Teddy White was probably the single most respected print journalist in America in 1983. White’s fear shows you how severe are the penalties in the media business for questioning immigration. ...

But, as Graham recalls,

“Hearing White’s agitated response, I had my first glimpse of the especially intense emotional Jewish version of that taboo [against immigration skepticism]. His whole heritage, and his standing with all his Jewish friends, was imperiled (he was certain) if he went public with his worries about the state of immigration.”

To show how buried away from public discourse this crucial aspect of modern America is kept, note that Graham, at that point a 47-year-old tenured professor of American history, was only then becoming aware of it!

Graham continues:

“I did not suspect it then, but this would become an important subtheme of our experience as immigration reformers. American Jews were exceptionally irrational about immigration for well-known reasons. They were also formidable opponents, or allies, in any issue of public policy in America.”

Indeed, on 2009’s Atlantic 50 list of most influential columnists, bloggers, and broadcast pundits, almost exactly half are Jewish, even though only about 2 percent of the population is Jewish. In particular, white Jewish males are represented at rates more than 50 times higher than the average American.

What Graham calls the “filiopietistic” urge (“of or relating to an often excessive veneration of ancestors …”) is particularly strong among Jewish media figures. (Italian-Americans, in contrast, tend to approach the immigration policy question by thinking about the future rather than by obsessing over the past.) This anti-rational emotional reflex about immigration contributes to the kitschy quality of MSM discourse on the topic.

OK, so Jewish ethnic nostalgia makes most of them pro open borders. But Jews are only 2% of the population; they didn't have the power on their own to change our immigration laws and the don't have the power to enforce the status quo either. That means that they have been abetted by many non-Jews. What's their motivation? Was it ethnic nostalgia that drove Hart, Kennedy, etc. to push for open borders?

What Graham calls the “filiopietistic” urge (“of or relating to an often excessive veneration of ancestors …”) is particularly strong among Jewish media figures.

Although slightly off topic, this case does show strong veneration of the faith.

In a unanimous decision Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that Max Feinberg and his wife, Erla, could legally disinherit any grandchildren who married outside the Jewish faith as long as the method of doing so did not encourage divorce.

"Was it ethnic nostalgia that drove Hart, Kennedy, etc. to push for open borders?"

Mack,

Hart, Kennedy, et al were the advocates of the '65 immigration bill, not it authors.

Its principal proponents were, of course, Congressman Emanuel Cellar, Senator Herbert Lehman and, of course, Senator Jacob “Let's Open Our Gates” Javits who engineered support in the Congress for open borders.

You appear to be aware of the above facts more or less and thus rarely engage in the sort of silliness that some of your stupider readers engage in when they sputter at the hypocrisy of how a Semite can kumbaya for open borders while a different Hebraic rushes forth, Bible in hand, to call for the smiting of Philistines. Precision aint quite their thing. Their motto is that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. These are, after all, Simple Folk, and to expect greater intellectual care from them is to set yourself up for disappointment. You, Steve, however, appear to have given small care to the gentle picking apart of these two tribes. You're aware that they're not the same and that, indeed, they are each other's fiercest foes, but you rarely mention this fact or attempt to spend some quiet time figuring the details of the matter out.

Of course you could save yourself the cranial energy and choose the Happy Meal route of deciding that everything that Jews do in favor of Jews is to further their "group selection" while everything they do counter to their interests (such as supporting Muslim terrorists, counseling FDR against bombing the railways to Auschwitz, marrying Filipinos...) is also being done to further the positive fates of the Jewish race. Just in some super sneaky way that only Jews (and tenured Jewologists of course) can understand. But, though you're occasionally given to some excited writing that wouldn't pass muster during your quieter hours, I'm pretty sure that you're general weltanschauung wouldn't abide such superstitious nonsense in its midst.

The intellectual work is therefore necessary. Which Jews are which? Better yet, which actually qualify as "Jews"? Of the 80 or so percent of "Jews" who voted for Obama, what percent attend synagogue daily? What percent can speak a correct Hebrew sentence? What percent had 4 Jewish grandparents? What percent have solely Jewish grandchildren?

Teasing apart the Jews from the "Jews" is no easy business, nor is it one in which I have any dog in the fight. I myself voted for Obama and just enjoyed some wonderful non-kosher food post-coitus on Yom Kippur. At the same time, I'm more aware of HBD facts than some 80% of the readers of this blog (and some 98% of Americans in general) and am outspoken on many issues that irk the modern liberals to their very core.

But though I may be a Jew of questionably repute, if there's one thing I know in this world, it's Jews. In fact you could say that Jews had been my bread and butter for a couple of decades - and the thinking in the comment threads here regarding Jews is too often woefully deranged while the reporting at the head of those threads too often encourages that canine howling by steering clear of all nuance and incisive questioning.

It's a shame because a big coalition on the left should have strong interest in stemming immigration with labor, environmentalist, entitlement seekers and even the anti-religious (immigrants have more faith than those they displace), but yet the Left embraces the flood of immigrants. It's perplexing. The explanation in this article does well to show some of the ends of some of the threads in this complex knot.

I'm with Kevin Macdonald on this one - The Jewish angle is not nostalgia at all. It has to do with undermining the WASP establishment's lock on power in the USA, and ensuring that a unified ethnic majority movement cannot arise there.

It would be interesting to run a logistic regression of the probability that a senate seat was held by a Jew (or a congressional seat) vs. the ethnic fragmentation in the state or district. It would of course neither proof or disprove MacDonald -- which is one of the problems for his theory -- but it would be supporting evidence if ethnic fragmentation led to more political power for Jews.

California has something like, what, 4% Jewish population by we have two Jewish senators. Go figure. Then again, still pretty homogeneous Minnesota has at least one Jewish Senator -- indeed Minnesotans weren't given a choice to vote for a non-jew major party candidate in last election for Senator there.

It's a shame because a big coalition on the left should have strong interest in stemming immigration with labor, environmentalist, entitlement seekers and even the anti-religious (immigrants have more faith than those they displace), but yet the Left embraces the flood of immigrants. It's perplexing.

I must agree. This is a very perplexing situation. You would think, at the very least, that the Sierra Club might at least speak up at the prospect of a population of 500 million people in this country. But nary a peep!

And yes, the Left does seem oddly unconcerned about wages and working conditions in this country after a century or more of real concern and activism.

I'm with Kevin Macdonald on this one - The Jewish angle is not nostalgia at all.i agree, the 'nostalgia' is a ruse...otherwise, we'd here plenty of calls for more non jewish immigration to israel.

BTW, a lot less comments on a jewish themed thread... does that mean a considerable amount of Sailer's posters are taking a holiday (and I don't mean St. Michael and ALl Angels feast day, as Brimelow acidically pointed out)

"But Jews are only 2% of the population; they didn't have the power on their own to change our immigration laws and the don't have the power to enforce the status quo either. That means that they have been abetted by many non-Jews."

You can't deny that there were non-Jews that went along and abetted.

But it's entirely feasible if you're average IQ is some SDs above the norm. If you have that kind of intelligence and that kind of a strong presence in public opinion making, you end up making a large impact on framing the various social/political issues, and determining the acceptable range of discourse.

The overrepresentation is significant enough and in the most "high impact" parts of society so that it's entirely within the realm of possibility that 2% was and is enough.

It's a shame because a big coalition on the left should have strong interest in stemming immigration with labor, environmentalist, entitlement seekers and even the anti-religious (immigrants have more faith than those they displace), but yet the Left embraces the flood of immigrants. It's perplexing.

Not really. The left is in the grip of "cultural Marxism" and has been since the sixties.

Cultural Marxism is like old-fashioned Marxism except that it substitutes white people (and white males in particular) for capitalists and non-white people for the proletariat. There's a large and well-developed body of thought to this effect.

And you know what old-fashiond Marxism wanted to do to capitalists. The modern left is an explicitly racialist movment, dedicated to making America and the West non-white.

There’s no knottier or more significant question you can ask than: When the government elects a new people, how many and whom should it elect?

Not surprisingly, the sheer cognitive challenge involved in having an informed and intelligent opinion on immigration is one reason why immigration is the least favorite major issue among mainstream public intellectuals. ...

To conceal how far in over their heads they are, Main Stream Media (MSM) staffers

Pretty funny, since you're substituting one set of gymnastics for another. I accept that it's probably squid ink, like your cardboard cutout "Citizenism" thing.

Was it ethnic nostalgia that drove Hart, Kennedy, etc. to push for open borders?

You can always find a politician to promote a powerful agenda and vote a certain way on any issue. The larger questions concern what interests drove the 1965 bill, why did they do it, and was the result what was intended. I don't have the answers to these questions, but it is a very curious thing.

Jewish organizations were big promoters of the bill. I don't know if they were critical to its passage or not. I also don't know why they did it. I'm not given to conspiracy theories, but I have a difficult time buying the argument that Jewish organizations pushed hard for this bill out of nothing more than feelings of nostalgia. I have to ask what these groups thought was in it for them or for their ethnic constituents.

eh. there is no doubt that the great majority of politically active jews are instensely hostile towards white gentile interests.

but there is definitely something wrong with european peoples the world over. in nations with few jews, most europeans still seem to subscribe to the agenda that the american democrats would set for them.

they want to be outnumbered and physically harrassed by hostile groups. they want to be discriminated against by their own government, they want to be discriminated against by every private company in their country. they want to surrender their identity, and become colorless, identity-less drones, while at the same time pressing for strong endorsement and recognition of every other group's identity and interests.

if they didn't want these things, they would be resisting them with much more ferver. but they aren't. white people don't want to fight. indeed, they've now been taught since they were children to never fight, never use force. as long as they can move away from where this process is happening, white people will run instead of fight. the younger white americans have now had racial indoctrination added to their conditioning, so who knows if they would resist even if backed into a corner. white boys are taught to be sissy wimps, as well as to hate their ancestors and themselves. all the other boys are encouraged to be as aggressive as they like and to show as much pride as possible.

this principle will, for instance, enable literally half of mexico to displace americans in the border states. under no circumstances will modern american whites fight or resist as long as they can simply move 2 states away.

Emanuel Celler was making almost the same arguments in 1948 that Tamar Jacoby uses today. Racism is wrong and we must increase our population...or else!

Celler in 1948:

The Immigration Act of 1924, establishing the annual quotas for countries based on a computation of approximately one-sixth of one per cent, presumably reflects composition of national origin of the inhabitants of the country in the year 1920. Due to the rigidity of our quota system, during the twenty-seven years the present quota law has been in effect, only forty-four per cent of the possible quota immigrants have actually been admitted. Of the total number of 154,000 annual quotas permitted under the law, 65,700 are allotted to Great Britain; 25,900 to Germany; and 17,800 to Ireland. Every other country having a quota is accorded a quota allotment of less than 7,000. This startling discrimination against central, eastern and southern Europe points out the gap between what we say and what we do. On the one hand we publicly pronounce the equality of all peoples, discarding all racialistic theories; on the other hand, in our immigration laws, we embrace in practice these very theories we abhor and verbally condemn. In the meantime, because Great Britain and Ireland barely use the quota allotment, a large percentage of the 154,000 annual quotas go to waste each year. They are non-transferable. The simple, practical solution - which it seems to me could easily be adopted without even going so far as to disturb the national origin system be to take the unused quotas and distribute them among countries with less than 7,000 quota allotments in the same proportion as they bear to the total quota pie.

It is important that we do so in terms of our own productivity and growth. If we take a long-range view of the position of the United States in the world, we must recognize that our rapid rise to world power during our 176-year history was based upon our population growth from four million to one hundred and fifty million, and this growth was largely the result of immigration. In the years ahead our population is headed for a stable plateau which means an aging population; that is, fewer young persons and more old persons proportionately in the total population. The rate of population growth in the United States is slightly below that required to reproduce itself. The American rate between 1933 and 1939 was 0.96. Compare that with the rate of Russia alone, which was 1.70. The population forecast for the United States in 1970 is 170 million people. The population forecast for Russia alone in 1970 is 251 million. The implications are clear.

Celler making an absurd argument in 1924: Austrian-Americans will feel inferior to Norwegian-Americans if we restrict immigration!

It is the most vaunted purpose of the majority of the Immigration Committee to encourage assimilation, yet this bill has already done more than anything I know of to bring about discord among our resident aliens. Processes have been encouraged that make for the very antithesis of assimilation. The Italian is told he is not wanted; the Pole is confronted with the stigma of inferiority; the bar sinister is placed upon the Czech and the Russian. Fortunate is the one whose cradle was rocked in Germany or England. The 'inferior complex' is now extended to all Europe, save Nordics. The Austrian rubbing elbows with the Norwegian in the subway or on the street is beset with emotions of inferiority. His pride surges within him. He resents the stigma placed upon him. Surely he does not view the favored one with complacency. Does he not rather view him with hatred? Thanks to the ill-considered and improvident Johnson bill; and so race is set against race, class against class.

Given that the vast majority of the legislators who voted for the immigration bill (along with the president who signed it) weren't Jews, Occam's Razor suggests that many of the non-Jews who voted for it had similar views as the (half?) Jewish Cellar.

It's interesting, too, that another bill that had long-range, destructive consequences to this country was signed by President Johnson: the creation of Medicare. His projections of its future costs at the time were orders of magnitude lower than what they turned out to be in reality, and now the growth of the program threatens our fiscal viability.

If Johnson had been a Jew, my guess is that many would say that he knew Medicare would be a fiscal time bomb, and he planted it because he was driven by antipathy toward America. I suspect it's more likely that he simply didn't think through the consequences of it. Perhaps a similar dynamic was true of the immigration bill. After all, didn't Sen. Kennedy make predictions about its results that turned out to be woefully inaccurate?

Can't we just simply stop immigration when we have populated this country beyond it's ecological carrying capacity? Why not have congress suspend immigration after say 325,000,000 American inhabitants? Wouldn't the left (especially the environmental side) be on board with this proposal?

Harel Kohen, an aide to Yaakov Katz, the lawmaker who heads the Knesset’s committee on foreign workers, said that taking a firm line on foreign workers illegally in Israel is about preserving the Jewish character of Israel.

“We need to ensure they do not stay in Israel, otherwise Israel is at risk of having its own people assimilated,” he said. “We could lose our Jewish identity.”

After all, didn't Sen. Kennedy make predictions about its results that turned out to be woefully inaccurate?

Yes, but the fact that he never moved to correct the "mistakes" and "failures" of the 1965 bill indicate that he didn't consider the results to be undesireable - that they were, in fact, intentional. Occam's Razor would suggest that he knew exactly what he was doing, as he knew what he was doing with the 1986 amnesty and knew what he was trying to do with the 2006 & 2007 amnesty attempts.

Given that the vast majority of the legislators who voted for the immigration bill (along with the president who signed it) weren't Jews, Occam's Razor suggests that many of the non-Jews who voted for it had similar views as the (half?) Jewish Cellar.

The projection part was about how Austrian-Americans would have their feelings hurt. I think Celler may have been thinking about how Jews would feel in relation to "Nordics" if immigration were restricted.

The issue here is Elite Ingroup Strategy and not Standard Deviation. The key to success for dominant minorities is Ingroup Loyalty and maximal leveraging of the Ingroup-Outgroup dynamic. All elite groups throughout the history of mankind have employed Ingroup Strategy to one extent or another in order to assume power and hold onto power.

It is mathematically absurd to postulate that high IQ Jews outnumber high gentile IQ persons in raw numbers in America. Let alone greatly outnumber. And therefore it is ludicrous to employ the "standard deviation above the mean IQ" argument which leads to Jews overrepresented as a majority % of power positions in key industries like finance and media. That argument is childish nonsense. This country has plenty of high IQ gentiles and also plenty of super high IQ gentiles. But those gentiles are splintered into many weak ingroups. Also many of the most intelligent gentiles are adamantly anti-Ingroup as a philosophical stance.

What is not nonsense is that the Jews have been around for approximately 5,000 years as a recognized, self-aware ingroup. And a strong ingroup can consolidate power within any organization. No advantage in IQ is necessary. Only a comparable IQ to the majority Outgroup is required. Example: homosexuals have consolidated power within various heterosexual organizations based on ingroup identity alone. Yes, dominance can be achieved with no advantage in IQ.

Ingroup-Outgroup dynamics are the key to human group social interaction and dominance. Intelligent discussion and analysis of Ingroup-Outgroup dynamics is basically taboo in American education. Unless, of course, it's a discussion focused on the victimology of various unsuccessfull groups that never can seem to rise past the socio-economic level of, say, working class whites. Then it's a simple case of the ingroup whitey oppressing the outgroup fill-in-the-blank.

The Asian lady who wrote the book "World On Fire" about the phenomenon of market dominant minorities is an exception to the Elite Ingroup Strategy Discussion Taboo. Even then it's left up to the reader to connect the dots and work through the logical progression that explains exactly why their own particular society is as messed up as it is.

I see alot of 'I think of my relatives who came over during the potato famine' amongst my Irish relatives. Seeing that Kennedy had a big thing for immigration I dont' think it's just my relatives who thought this way.

The real question is why they don't care about what it does to the poor underclass we already have here. My assumption is they dont' really care. They just like posturing. Whoever the most pathetic group is they love. They aren't interested in furthering anyone's agenda other than their own moral preening. The Jewishness of alot of these guys is not the matter, the need for sanctimoniousness is. That's what some people live for.

"What is not nonsense is that the Jews have been around for approximately 5,000 years as a recognized, self-aware ingroup. And a strong ingroup can consolidate power within any organization."

The power is consolidated among a high-IQ elite, not among an exclusively Jewish elite. Thus, Goldman Sachs, a firm initially founded by German-American Jews, has plenty of non-Jews as well as Jews among its employees and its alumni. They do what's in the interest of each other as Goldman employees and alumni, not what's in the interest of Jews, or of this country. The current CEO is a Jew, but previous CEOs (e.g., Paulson, Corzine) have been non-Jews, and individuals of all non-NAM groups are represented at the highest levels of the firm (a smattering of NAMs is included at lower levels).

Growing up in a mostly pro labor ethnic family(my Uncle was President of a Union), it is unfathomable to me that Democrats would support illegal immigration. If nothing else, it is wage busting. Even Cesar Chavez was against unchecked immigration for farm workers because he knew it would depress wages.

There is no way you can support an increased standard of living and illegal immigration. The two are incompatible.

This is a little off topic, but there are a couple of things worthy of mention in the Jaycee Dugard case. The first is that, despite our obsession with education, an intelligent woman with a fifth grade education can easily fit into service economy jobs and manage a business as she did. The second is that our society regards biological fathers as disposable and completely interchangeable with stepfathers.

In some cases this silence can be attributed directly to pressure from elite donors. So it was when investor David Gelbaum donated $101.5 million to the Sierra Club in 2001.Read more about the scandalous submission of top environmental groups to corporate and private donors in: Green, Inc. An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad, by Christine MacDonald (The Lyons Press, 2008).

Gelbaum was already a substantial donor in 1995, when he told the Sierra Club, “[I]f they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me.”1 The next year, the Sierra Club Board of Directors adopted a policy of silence, stating: “The Sierra Club, its entities, and those speaking in its name will take no position on immigration levels or on policies governing immigration into the United States.”2

Despite pressure from its members to confront the issue of immigration, the Sierra Club has maintained its silence, for which it was richly rewarded by David Gelbaum.

Given that the vast majority of the legislators who voted for the immigration bill (along with the president who signed it) weren't Jews, Occam's Razor suggests that many of the non-Jews who voted for it had similar views as the (half?) Jewish Cellar.

So the argument is that Jews were a necessary, but not sufficient cause? That's certainly the impression I get from those verboten MR links (G**gle "Jewish vs. Euro-American Voting Patterns" and "By Their Deeds Shall Ye Know Them!"): that the struggle between open-borders and sensible border policy would be a near thing without Jewish influence and Congressional votes.

When two men are struggling near a cliff, it doesn't take much effort for a third to decide which man goes over the edge.

If Johnson had been a Jew, my guess is that many would say that he knew Medicare would be a fiscal time bomb, and he planted it because he was driven by antipathy toward America.

The difference being, we have a decent record of Jewish thinking on how undermining America is good for the Jews. We don't have a similar record for whites qua whites (though we do have a pretty good explanation for why the white elite does these things - Uncle Tom).

The difference is not academic; get a white elite caring about his own people and he reverses his behavior; get a Jew caring about his (or moreso) and he intensifies his previous behavior.

Can't we just simply stop immigration when we have populated this country beyond it's ecological carrying capacity?

No. The left has a hierarchy of interests and "minority"-boosting is way higher up the pole than environmentalism or combating urban sprawl.

The power is consolidated among a high-IQ elite, not among an exclusively Jewish elite. Thus...

You seem to almost be straying into strawman territory here; no one is claiming human social dynamics are simple.

But we can make some simple observations and simplify themes for the purposes of argument. E.g., if you have a corporation composed of 10% X and 90% Y, but the Xs have a collective agenda and the Ys do not, guess whose collective agenda has traction? Well, both actually, but Ys agenda is an empty briefcase. Whose agenda gets enacted at Goldman Sachs? Well, everyone's: XYZ all make money, X move the whole organization toward their agenda (pro-X), Y move the whole organization toward theirs (anti-Y), etc.

So yes, Goldman Sachs almost certainly does what's in the interest of Jews, in addition to serving the individual career interests of its members.

Collective and individual interests can often (ostensibly) collide, and the former often win. Look at the Gibson Affair; nobody in Hollywood would touch The Passion with a ten foot pole, and everyone gave up the opportunity for a share of 575 million in revenue. Of course there was much hand-wringing about how Hollywood didn't know there was money to be made in Christian cinema (but movies about homosexual males? Public's clamoring for them dontcha know?), which is a bald-faced lie (Hollywood STILL pretends not to know). Hollywood doesn't want to make money on Christian cinema, any more than a merchant wants to make money on rope to be used to hang his children.

Some people think it is Dutch [Cosyns, Coursen, Corson, Cozine], some think it is French [Courson, Coslyn, Coursqn], and some believe that it is German or Northern Italian.

Just glancing through the records, it looks as though Jon Corzine might have had at least one great-grandmother, a Jeannette Adelaide Burdick, who was of Jewish stock [compare 100028218158 and 100005140410].

And Corzine abandoned his Shiksa wife of 30+ years for a union thug-ette named Carla Katz.

You know, up until about a year ago, my attitude would have been something along the lines of, "Okay, an obvious side-effect of recent immigration policy has been to water-down the WASP institutions and traditions and moral-intellectual foundations of this country, but surely that wasn't the conscious, intended purpose of the policy, was it?!?"

But after everything I've seen in the last year involving goldman sachs credit suisse steven koch bernardine dohrn etc etc etc, I just can't do it anymore - somewhere between learning that Bernadine Dohrn's birth name was "Ohrnstein" and watching The Powers That Be trot out Nell Minow to lead the campaign to vilify Matt Taibbi, I threw in the towel.

At this point, I'm about ready to believe in anything: Area 51 & flying saucers? No problem.

Seeing living, breathing - or at least celluloid - proof that only a few short decades ago we still had a thriving Anglo-Saxon-Celtic culture in this country is like walking into a museum and seeing a 3000-year-old statue of a pagan goddess - it sends a shiver down your spine.

Since the Jews KNOW full well how prone WASPs are to suspicions of Jewish conspiracy, then why DO the Jews insist on being pushy with all their utopian, tikkun olam notions and getting involved in politics/media opinion-making? Why don't they demonstrate some of that legendary cunning and savvy by staying home, shushing up and minding their own business?

"So the argument is that Jews were a necessary, but not sufficient cause?"

"but about 40% of the wealth, and 60% of the contributions to both parties..."

Evidence? I find it hard to believe that Jews have 40% of the wealth in this country, especially when Gates, Buffett, Munger, etc. are on the opposite side of the ledger. Speaking of which, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates support the same causes liberal Jews do. Why? Are they trying to destroy WASP America?

"$$$$ maybe?"

Yes, the experience of growing up in extravagant wealth must have made Kennedy susceptible to bribes by Emmanuel Cellar. Let's try again, shall we?

"in nations with few jews, most europeans still seem to subscribe to the agenda that the american democrats would set for them."

Could it be that Jews in affluent, Western countries share the same self-destructive political impulses that Christians in those countries do?

"So the argument is that Jews were a necessary, but not sufficient cause?"

Did you always have trouble with reading comprehension? Where did I write that?

"So yes, Goldman Sachs almost certainly does what's in the interest of Jews, in addition to serving the individual career interests of its members."

Evidence? Examples? When Paulson was CEO, he wasted a large amount of Goldman's money buying a piece of Tierra del Fuego as a nature reserve. How did this advance Jewish interests? How do Goldman's Jews coordinate their interests? Do they meet in a cemetery at midnight? If not, surely there must be some written evidence of this coordination of theirs as Jews qua Jews. Can you point it out for us?

"Since the Jews KNOW full well how prone WASPs are to suspicions of Jewish conspiracy, then why DO the Jews insist on being pushy with all their utopian, tikkun olam notions and getting involved in politics/media opinion-making? Why don't they demonstrate some of that legendary cunning and savvy by staying home, shushing up and minding their own business?"

Hate to break it to you, Anon, but the WASPs share some of the same utopian notions -- in fact, that's what prompted a handful of them to found the United States in the first place.

As far as your theory that Jews wouldn't be the subject of conspiracy theories if they "shushed up and minded their own business", history suggests otherwise. Jews were accused of conspiracies (ranging from using the blood of Gentile children to make matzoh to some that would sound more familiar to you) in countries and at times when they did exactly that. Can't win.

You don't think there are Jews with self-destructive political impulses in Israel? Think again. There are Jews advocating for letting in more Ethiopian tribesmen and other primitives, there is an ACLU-type organization that files legal claims on behalf of Palestinians against the state, etc., etc.

"I was wondering when Ted Turner, the token white media baron, would show up on this thread."

He wasn't mentioned in the context of being a media baron, but in the context of being extremely wealthy. At to the list of extremely wealth WASPs the Walton kids, who, if you added their wealth all together, are richer collectively than Bill Gates.

So you've got Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, the Waltons, etc., among WASPs, and Jews are supposed to have 60% of the wealth in this country? We're good, but we're not that good.

"'Movement is inevitable,' Jeni Klugman, the lead writer of the report, said in an interview. 'Restrictions on movement lead to worse outcomes than would otherwise be the case, so we aim to raise public understanding of the benefits that accrue to destination countries from migration.'"

As for Jews vs. Italians on immigration, no one really 1) knows or 2) cares what Italian-Americans think.1) There is a whole range of opinions among Italians as among any other group of Americans. There is the mayor of New Haven, who is embarrassingly pro-illegal alien, and there is Tom Tancredo,* who is famous for his opposition to illegal (and legal) immigration.

2) While Italians are more affluent and educated than the national average, they are seriously under-represented among public intellectuals and media figures (journalists and pundits) which may be related to their under-representation in the Ivy League and other elite institutions. I notice that there is only one Italian name on the Atlantic Top 50 list (Joe Nocera) even though Italian-Americans outnumber Jews by almost 3 to 1.

In my experience, Italian Americans are proud of their immigrant ancestors, but they tend to be more reserved and guarded in discussing their heritage for various reasons.

My dad has said some interesting things- he thinks that most of the Mexican illegal aliens are coming to the US not as part of a "reconquista" but for the same reasons his Sicilian grandparents did- they want a better life than they could have in their own country with all its problems.

While he thinks that people who are here illegally but otherwise law-abiding should be allowed to earn legal status, after that happens, the US could use a "time-out" on immigration to help the current crop of immigrants assimilate.

*Note: I know that a lot of people here are fans of Tom Tancredo. But like Tancredo himself, his views on immigration and politics in general aren't exactly typical of Italian-Americans, at least not in their intensity and expression. For instance, Tancredo's comments about "white Anglo-Saxon culture" don't appeal to people who are proud of their Italian heritage and naturally recognize that our heritage is Greco-Roman as well as Anglo-Saxon.

Here's the Google Wallet FAQ. From it: "You will need to have (or sign up for) Google Wallet to send or receive money. If you have ever purchased anything on Google Play, then you most likely already have a Google Wallet. If you do not yet have a Google Wallet, don’t worry, the process is simple: go to wallet.google.com and follow the steps." You probably already have a Google ID and password, which Google Wallet uses, so signing up Wallet is pretty painless.

You can put money into your Google Wallet Balance from your bank account and send it with no service fee.

Google Wallet works from both a website and a smartphone app (Android and iPhone -- the Google Wallet app is currently available only in the U.S., but the Google Wallet website can be used in 160 countries).

Or, once you sign up with Google Wallet, you can simply send money via credit card, bank transfer, or Wallet Balance as an attachment from Google's free Gmail email service. Here'show to do it.

(Non-tax deductible.)

Fourth: if you have a Wells Fargo bank account, you can transfer money to me (with no fees) via Wells Fargo SurePay. Just tell WF SurePay to send the money to my ancient AOL email address steveslrATaol.com -- replace the AT with the usual @). (Non-tax deductible.)

Fifth: if you have a Chase bank account (or, theoretically,other bank accounts), you can transfer money to me (with no fees) via Chase QuickPay (FAQ). Just tell Chase QuickPay to send the money to my ancient AOL email address (steveslrATaol.com -- replace the AT with the usual @). If Chase asks for the name on my account, it's Steven Sailer with an n at the end of Steven. (Non-tax deductible.)

My Book:

"Steve Sailer gives us the real Barack Obama, who turns out to be very, very different - and much more interesting - than the bland healer/uniter image stitched together out of whole cloth this past six years by Obama's packager, David Axelrod. Making heavy use of Obama's own writings, which he admires for their literary artistry, Sailer gives the deepest insights I have yet seen into Obama's lifelong obsession with 'race and inheritance,' and rounds off his brilliant character portrait with speculations on how Obama's personality might play out in the Presidency." - John Derbyshire Author, "Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics" Click on the image above to buy my book, a reader's guide to the new President's autobiography.